What better way to get out of the sun than to spend a bit of time digging crates at your local record shop? While the summer weeks tend to be slow for new releases, you'll find plenty of excellent new albums in stores this week. Among them is the second album from Seattle's Shelby Earl, whose Damien Jurado-produced Swift Arrows our Music Director, Don Yates, calls "a powerful set of emotive folk-pop incorporating elements of psych-folk and classic girl-group pop" and "features a warm, rich sound that’s a striking departure from her more stark-sounding debut." Brooklyn-via-San Francisco band Weekend have perhaps the most buzzed about album right now. Their second LP is "a somewhat bleaker and more streamlined take on their shoegazerish post-punk sound, combining oceanic guitars, atmospheric synths and driving rhythms with more prominent vocals and a stronger lyrical focus". (Look for a more in-depth review here soon.) The Delward-based duo of vocalist Katie Dill and producer Sam Nobles go by the name Mean Lady, but their songs are quite nice. In fact, their debut "is a super strong set of whimsical, quirky indie pop full of colorful backdrops, inventive samples, stuttering beats, and Dill's sharp, sweet vocals that recall a smoother version of tUnE-yArD's Merrill Garbus." And legendary Texas singer-songwriter (and guitar maker!) Guy Clark is releasing his first new studio album in four years, the first after the death of his wife and muse of over 40 years, and it's a stunner!
Other new releases this week come from Bar Harbor, Maine's Coke Weed, whose third album is full of "downer psych-rock with rumbling fuzzy guitars, hypnotic rhythms and dual male/female vocals"; NC band and KEXP fave The Love Language, whose latest is "a fine set of maximalist pop-rock, with a loud, dense, occasionally overstuffed sound combining guitars, keyboards, horns, strings, glockenspiel and more"; vocalist, electronic producer, and Lexington, Kentucky, native Ellie Herring, whose sophomore effort is "a promising set of hypnotic electro-pop tracks that intermittently flirt with playful, uptempo rhythms"; Bay Area band Hunx & His Punx, whose new LP ""finds them bringing a sharper, more aggressive punk edge to their girl-group garage-pop"; and New York gypsy-punks Gogol Bordello with their anthemic and characteristically energetic sixth album full of energetic rhythms and impassioned vocals.
Also in stores are the latest from indie-hippies Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, a strong debut from bluesy dance-rock duo Kid Karate, the latest of mind-melting electronic experimentation from Bristol's Fuck Buttons, and a promising psych pop single from UK band Temples. Plus, fans'll want to pick up re-issues and multi-disc box sets from The Mountain Goats, Otis Redding, Smashing Pumpkins, and Style Council. Check out the songs gather below before checking out your stack of LPs at your favorite record shop today:
Another light summer week of new releases, but there's a handful hitting shelves today that you'll definitely want to check out. Portland singer-songwriter Alela Diane tops the list with her fourth album of heartbreaking (and broken) folk-pop, highlighting her rich voice and often personal lyrics. …
While it's a fairly slow summer week for new releases, there are definitely some terrific Northwest releases to get you shopping at your favorite record store today. In the past three years between their second and third albums, Seattle's Feral Children seem to have grown into men... wild men, sure…
